Animal of the Day: Mike

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Beasts are all around us. Many of them are familiar and many of them are so odd and mysterious that they challenge the laws of what we find nonfiction. Each weekday on GUY, we take a look at one of them.

A warning: Some will be adorable. Some will make your skin crawl. Some of them will make you never want to leave the house.

Yesterday’s Animal: The Pygmy Goat!
Today’s Animal: Mike, the Headless Chicken

Supper!

The third weekend in May is a special time in Fruita, Colorado. It is then that they celebrate the life, decapitation, and continued life of Mike the Headless Chicken. Mike was a chicken who in 1945 was smashed with an axe. His future was intended to come to a quick and bloody end.

His head lopped off, Mike continued to live and when the farmer found him sleeping peacefully the next day with his dispatched head under his wing the decision was made to keep this charmed pecker alive as long as nature allowed. That ended up being eighteen months.

Eighteen months without a head.

Mike was a sensation. First with scientists, who discovered that enough of his brain stem was intact to allow the chicken to love a healthy headless life. His diet: grain and water through an eyedropper. His eyesight: 0/0. His travels: All around the nation. His fans: Perennial. To this day there’s a festival every year. Thousands of people for seventy years have been entertained by a poorly slaughtered food item. Amazing.

Scarily, Mike would have lived longer had his owner not flubbed and lost the vital eyedropper used to keep that neckhole sated. Mike choked to death due human negligence in a grimy hotel room in Arizona.A sad ending to an inspiring story of head loss and fame gained. In today’s world some animal rights organization would have steeped in on day three and euthanized the beast but back then sideshows were good for business and Mike was well fed and never had to want for anything. Except his face, eyesight, hearing, and ability to decide.

Remember: The third weekend in May is a special time in Fruita, Colorado. It is then that they celebrate the life, decapitation, and continued life of Mike the Headless Chicken.

One would suspect that in Mike’s wake there were many other efforts to slice a chicken in a method that would allow for additional headless chickens to roam the Earth but there just aren’t many stories of such. The combination of the cut, timely blood clotting, and the impenetrable will of Mike are a cocktail of circumstances we see all too rarely.

Eighteen months without a fucking head.

Quick Hits:

• If it were horse sized, we’d… CALL IT THE HEADLESS HORSECHICKEN.
• If it had wings, it’d… BE EXACTLY THE SAME.
• If granted human intellect, it’d… HAVE TROUBLE ACCESSING THAT INFO.
• If ‘Day of the Animals’ happened, we’d… HAVE ONE LESS TASK TO DO BEFORE EATIN’ TIME.

Have a peek:

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